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Moon Info calculates rise and set times,
as well as transit—the time when the moon is directly overhead—for
any chosen date, based on location. Location (latitude and longitude)
is easily obtained from Tide Tool for a nearby tide or current
location, or from your GPS or nautical chart. Moon Info is shareware:
You can download and try it for free, but you must pay a nominal
fee unless you don’t mind the annoying reminders. If you find
the application useful, you will be eager to reward the author.
If you enjoy star gazing when camping, you
may have wondered, “What star or planet is that?” Star Pilot
has the answer. After you enter your approximate location by
selecting a nearby city, Star Pilot plots a real-time (or any
selected date and time) star chart. Hold the unit over your
head, turn on the back light, and glowing stars are shown just
as they appear in the sky. (To obtain this effect on early-model
Palms that do not back light with glowing text and objects on
a dark screen, as the new models do, you can install Lighthack
to reverse the polarity so that the stars glow, rather than
appear as black dots on the screen.) Tap on a star and that
area is enlarged. Tap again and a box pops up that names the
object and provides information. Stars, planets, deep-sky objects
and constellations are all easily identified. Star Pilot is
shareware. It can be purchased in a very nice bundle with Moon
Info, Sun, and J-Moons. Sun provides similar information as
Moon Info, while J-Moons shows the position of Jupiter’s moons—handy
if you brought your telescope! Although the phase of the moon
is crudely shown in Tide Tool with a small image, Moonphase
(freeware) shows a large display of the current or future phase
of the moon, and is integrated with Moon Info.
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